"BEIJING - A dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies not only over vast areas of Asia but also in the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, changing world weather patterns and threatening health and food supplies, the United Nations reported yesterday.

The huge smog-like plumes, caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and firewood, are known as "atmospheric brown clouds." When mixed with emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for warming Earth's atmosphere like a greenhouse, they are the newest threat to the global environment, according to a report commissioned by the U.N. Environment Program.

"All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to look at emissions across the planet," said Achim Steiner, head of Kenya-based UNEP.

Brown clouds are caused by an unhealthy mix of particles, ozone and other chemicals that come from cars, coal-fired power plants, burning fields and wood-burning stoves. First identified by the report's lead researcher in 1990, the clouds were depicted yesterday as being more widespread and more damaging than previously known.

Perhaps most widely recognized as the haze this past summer over Beijing's Olympics, the clouds have been found to be more than a mile thick around glaciers in Asian mountain ranges.

They hide the sun and absorb radiation, leading to new worries not only about global climate change but also about extreme weather conditions. "All these have led to negative effects on water resources and crop yields," the report says.

Health problems associated with particulate pollution, such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, are linked to nearly 350,000 premature deaths in China and India every year, said Henning Rohde, a University of Stockholm scientist who worked on the study. Soot levels in the air were reported to have risen alarmingly in 13 megacities: Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Calcutta, Lagos, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran.

Brown clouds were also blamed for dimming the light by as much as 25 percent in some places including Karachi, New Delhi, Shanghai and Beijing. The phenomenon complicates climate change because the brown clouds also help cool Earth's surface and mask the impact of global warming by an average of 40 percent, according to the report.

Though the brown cloud phenomenon has been studied closely in Asia, the latest findings, conducted by an international collaboration of scientists, reveal that it is not unique to Asia, with pollution hot spots seen in North America, Europe, South Africa and South America.

An international response is needed to deal with "the twin threats of greenhouse gases and brown clouds and the unsustainable development that underpins both," said the lead researcher, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate and ocean sciences at the University of California in San Diego."

_________________________"In case you ever wondered what it's like to be knocked out, it's like waking up from a nightmare only to discover it wasn't a dream." -Forrest Griffin

MattJ, the first thing I have to say to you is never, never, trust the U.N. They are an organization filled with evil dictators and corrupt bureacrats. Scandal after scandal comes out of that cesspool, from starving Iraqi people so that various U.N. officials could get rich off of Saddams oil contracts, innapropriate behavior of U.N. peacekeepers with the children of Third world countries and so on. The answer to the brown cloud is A) America is evil, B) America must give the U.N. lots of money so they can "give the money to third world countries" C) Americans must stop being successful because other countries cannot keep up so therefore America must once again give money to corrupt U.N. officials. The environmental movement with its various scares are simply a means by which bad people from other countries can extort money from Americans and other nationalities who for some reason feel guilty about being American or successful or both. Global warming is the king of scams for this effort. I would be curious to see your response. Keep in mind that the U.N. is the most corrupt organization on earth primarily because all of the really bad people see it as an easy way to get their bad deeds done. So please, take it easy, read some opposing views on global warming and these other "environmental problems" and give free thought a chance.Bill

I guess you didn't even so much as glance at the actual text of the article. Note that the article was referring to locations in Africa and Asia. The "brown cloud" is basically what we know in America as smog. It is visible, unlike Global Warming, so there is no doubt about it's occurance. Note also that smog can have a mitigating effect on Global Warming - not that smog is a solution for it.

America was barely mentioned.

And thanks for trying to clue me in about reading up on Global Warming, bro. I never thought of that before.

I am not a crack pot denier, I am a loud and proud denier of the man made global warming hoax. I am sorry if you believe in it because it will cost you and I more and more of our freedom. America may have been barely mentioned in the article but believe me America will be blamed eventually and then will be expected to pay large sums of tax money to corrupt U.N. officials and corrupt third world governments. Remember, the two scandals I mentioned are only two of the many scandals by this corrupt organization. You should look into the other side of the global warming hoax because you are being mislead by some silly people. Try the book: Unstoppable global warming: Every 50,000 years.The founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman I think that is his name, has called global warming a hoax. So please, Do not trust the U.N. and don't give away any more of your freedom for a bunch of silliness.Bill

Fact: Pollution is not a good thing, irrespective of politics, mankind is a plague, and our waste products are, if not directly harming the balance of the earth, then certainly not helping it.

Fact: The west will jump on any bandwagon that can be used to slow China's economic and industrial development, as their natural resources, developing economic strength, and new found interest in the global market has come at a time when the US and Europe are in a very fragile state, where the main industry is the creation of, and profiting from, private individuals debt.

Any effort and pressure to curtail the Far East's cavalier attitude towards the environment may be seen as welcome, but never forget that the motivation behind that effort is preservation of world power balance, not altruism or concern for the polar bears.

Quote:I am not a crack pot denier, I am a loud and proud denier of the man made global warming hoax.

There is quite a bit of science behind this hoax, my friend. Most of the deniers are in the pockets of Big Oil or Big Tobacco (Seitz, Christy, etc). Why don't YOU do some research instead of watching Fox News.

Quote:I am sorry if you believe in it because it will cost you and I more and more of our freedom. America may have been barely mentioned in the article but believe me America will be blamed eventually and then will be expected to pay large sums of tax money to corrupt U.N. officials and corrupt third world governments. Remember, the two scandals I mentioned are only two of the many scandals by this corrupt organization.

Lord save us from the corrupt UN! We certainly don't know anything about corruption here in the US! *coughIraqcough* *coughMortgageCrisiscough*

Quote:You should look into the other side of the global warming hoax because you are being mislead by some silly people. Try the book: Unstoppable global warming: Every 50,000 years.The founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman I think that is his name, has called global warming a hoax. So please, Do not trust the U.N. and don't give away any more of your freedom for a bunch of silliness.Bill

See above. Your sources are corporate whores who are selling out the environment - and all of our children - for money. Do you even know what junk science is? Junk science is when you START with a conclusion, and then bend, create or ignore facts to support the conclusion, regardless of actual results. You know, like "WMD's in Iraq". That kind of thing.

REAL science starts with a hypothesis, and then tests that hypothesis to see if it is accurate. Then they have peers review it even further. The results may or may not support it, but the facts are what's important.

Quote:But in any case, Cord is correct, at the bottom line: Pollution is bad. Regardless of one's feelings about the UN or whatever.

Well, I truly believe that there is agenda and 'bad science' used on both sides of this debate, and I dont think that everyone buying a Prius and putting their glass bottles in a recycling bank makes a flying f*ck of a difference to be honest with you. I do know that China is the only country to address the one true cause of mans impact on the environment- overpopulation, and in that respect, they are further ahead than the rest of us who for some reason think its our duty to create more human organisms than our environment can cope with, whilst leaving surplus children in government care just because they are not blessed with our own DNA

Their is no debate that climate change is cyclical- there were no V8's or power stations in the run up to the last Ice age, and we are running on supposition when we consider that this bout of global warming is 'ahead of schedule' as we simply do not know the full history of this lump of rock from big bang , (or gods workshop for you creationists out there), to today.

What I do know is that when I see species and ecosystems destroyed to make way for pasture or roads or housing, it makes me sick that we think we have some arrogant right to put ourselves over other animals. A lion breaks out of a zoo enclosure and kills a kid- we put down the lion (who didnt want to be there anyway). A kid goes hunting with his dad and kills a deer and gets his photo taken and patted on the back.Arrogance and hypocricy as a way of life. We deserve to die out as the new dinosaurs we are.

Going back to the original topic of the brown clouds, has anyone seen or heard about our so called E-cycling efforts that are winding up in China and contirbuting to this and other environmental problems over there? Alot of our supposed E-cycling isn't recycling at all. We are simply shipping huge quantities of electronics over to China and they are using unsafe methods to dispose of the monitors, computers, and circuit boards that have all kinds of poisons and hazardous chemicals contained within them. Some are simply being openly piled and burned, releasing those toxins into the air and polluting the surrounding areas, in some cases, making villages completely uninhabitable.

I had no idea this was happening until this week. I thought E-cycling was genuine and helping the environment.

_________________________"The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be."

A couple of facts: the third world will try to use the global warming hoax to cripple the developed world and get the developed world to send them lots of cash. I really feel for the chinese as they use slave labor and one child policies to out compete the west. We have so much to admire them for. And as to corporate whores, that comment is the last refuge of coolade drinkers around the world. The university research scientists are the real whores because they are willing to suck up tax dollars for fake research that is used to keep them and their jobs safe. This goes for the government agencies too that use global warming to demand bigger budgets to increase their own power. That whole the world is overpopulated concept is silly as well. We are not even close to being even remotely overpopulated. To Razorfoot, this is the history of government intervention in large overly complex issues. They will get it wrong and screw it up every single time. As far as Iraq goes, please, try to develop some wisdom and not just absorb what the simpletons on the BBC or CNN tell you. Iraq was an optional war the way the invasion of Austria was an optional war for Europe before world war two. If the girly-men of Europe had taken care of business then, a lot of people would have lived past the 1940's. Thank the lord President Bush did what needed to be done.Bill

MattJ, that was a nice description of the scientific method. You should send it to all of the scientists who are perpetuating the man made global warming hoax for their own profit. Maybe you can shame them into telling the truth.Bill